


A Way Home

by undermourningstar



Series: Fire Emblem Heroes: Rewrites [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 19:26:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16001732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undermourningstar/pseuds/undermourningstar
Summary: A more in-depth look at Book 2: Chapter 13Or: if IS gave Laegjarn a little more screen time





	A Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a huge sucker for villains/anti-heroes.

The king of Muspelheim slammed his axe into the floor of the throne room. His face, always seemingly seething with anger, was frothing with the anger of ten thousand suns. 

“Laevatein… ‘Do not rest until you have killed them.’ I made myself clear.”

Laevatein had not flinched when he had banged the doors open, nor when he had slammed Sinmara in to the ground, blade first, but she did feel her throat close up as she stammered out, “Yes. And we - Aagh!”

Laegjarn saw him pull his axe out of the ground, saw the flames ignite as he swung it through the air. She watched it slice through her sister’s stomach and felt her heart jump into her throat.

“They still live,” he growled and pulled his axe out of his daughter.

“Guh - gaah!” She collapsed from where she stood, left of the throne, her blood staining the stone ground. 

Surtr barely even glanced at her as he sat back down. “Here you sit, soaked in shame. You are a disgrace to Muspell. For the weak, there is only death!”

“Father… I am … sor - aaagh!”

None of the soldiers moved as he threw his axe again and it embedded itself in her arm. Laegjarn understood that the only reason she was not bleeding out on the ground right now was the magic in the axe but once she was removed from its presence… She couldn’t bear it any longer.

Laegjarn stepped forward, a move that startled the lower ranking soldiers in the room. Helbindi himself even blinked in shock as she shouted to Surtr, “Father - please! Stop! If you keep going, she’ll… She’ll…”

He turned to her. “She’ll what? She’ll die? What concern of it is yours?”

She clenched her fists and held back her tongue. “Father…” But he had already turned away from her. 

“Laevatein,” he grunted. The poor girl barely could lift her head to look up at him. 

“I will grant you one last chance. Offer yourself to the flames of Muspell.” This elicited a collective gasp from the generals in the room. None of them had been offered the privilege (or curse) of burning with the flames.

“No matter how poor the fuel… the flame will not suffer for it.”

“The flames of Muspell? You know what that means!” Laegjarn felt herself shouting before she could stop herself. At this point, composure was the last thing that mattered.

“A fitting death,” he simply stated and smirked at Laevatein’s prone form.

“Please… Father… Send me instead. If you’ll allow it, I will take her place.” Laegjarn swallowed her heart from and felt it disappear from her throat and sequester in her chest in its iciest corner. 

“I will be the one to burn with the flames of Muspell.” Then louder, in declaration, she shouted “I will be the one to destroy your enemies! I beg you…”

He had the gall to laugh. 

“So be it. You shall be the one to die. And if you fail, your sister will be next.” He waved them out of the room. “Go.”

Laegjarn bowed and picked up her sword. “Very well, Father.”

~~~~

The foolish Heroes of the Order rounded the corner. Laegjarn took in a deep breath and steadied her dragon. Besides her, her guards mounted their dragons. Laegjarn turned her focus away from her guard and instead remembered being in the room when their history tutor taught Laevatein the words to the Rite. 

Her hair was beginning to fade into green, and Laevatein had just decided her hair was going to be candy pink forever. They were laughing, little birds in the atrium of the library. Laerer had been sitting silently in the corner, but as the noonday sun just began to retreat, he pulled the book down from the shelf and she felt herself stiffen. 

The red-headed soldier whistled cheerfully. “This secret entrance is cleverly hidden. If Loki hadn’t give us this map, we never would have found it.”

The prince barely nodded his head as he considered the map. “And imprisoned in this temple is Princess Veronica…” He lifted his gaze and saw the ledge Laegjarn’s regiment waited on. “You!”

“Rgh…” she huffed and drew her sword. Her knights lifted off and began to encircle the Order.

The princess drew her spear at the same time her brother unsheathed his sword. Fensalir and Folkvangr, she noted. Swords of opposing kingdoms, and yet she felt some kinship to them. A brother and sister, so dedicated and fighting side by side… She shook her head. Focus, she reminded herself.

The Ice princess looked up to the soldiers as well, but her eyes focused in on Laegjarn. 

“Princess Laegjarn!” Her face showed some strange emotion - concern, fear, worry? She didn’t have time to give it attention. She drew farther back, towards the eternal flame, and reached out her hand.

Alphonse noticed her movements. In between the clashing of swords and protecting his sister’s back from the Muspell archer. “Wait a moment, Princess Fjorm… Something is not right here.”

“Little princess,” Laerer beckoned her to sit beside him. The sun had been shining that day, hotter than the throne room, hotter than it should have been inside the palace. “Just repeat these words when you are ready… When the time comes to dedicate your body and soul to this kingdom, please just say…” 

Laegjarn took a deep breath - the last that would be her own. She began in almost a whisper as she uttered the secret words older than Muspellheim itself.

“Muspell, dragon of flame…” 

She hesitated as she saw Laevatein mouthing the words along with Laerer. She wavered, her fingertips above the brazier and yet she continued to recite.

“I offer you my flesh. Arm and arm, leg and leg. My head, my heart…” 

And then she remembered her sister, fallen, dying, on the throne room floor. She reached into the brazier, ignoring the scorching of her skin as the flames greedily began to lick up her body, and screamed.

“All of it offered, that you may feed. Devour me!”

~~~~

Fighting had never felt so good.

Muspell burned in her veins, on her skin. She knew after years of training and honing her body and flame resistance, she could withstand some of the holy flames for now, but the adrenaline and the joy from cutting her enemies down, slice after stab into horse and rider… She felt … a l i v e

Besides her, soldiers fell. Laerer’s brother, her footmen, her vanguard, and more dropped to the ground as the Order decimated her ranks, but she had done much worse to their numbers. She hadn’t reached the commanding group yet, where their Summoner and heroes remained, but she was close, and the fire in her blood hungered. Nothing else mattered now. Just blood blood blood to feed the dragon barely bound by her skin.

And then she was on her back, on the ground. No soldiers stood around her; it was just her and the Order. She was aware of herself now, and the fire that had burned in her veins now burned through her skin. She could feel it consuming her insides. This is what Father had wanted for Laevatein. Never could she allow that.

“Lae...vatein…” she coughed out. Maybe that blood on her shirt was from the fight, or maybe it was soot from her throat. “Somehow… You have to… Please…”

Princess Fjorm kneeled besides her, spear in the hands of the Summoner. “Laegjarn…” She took her palm gently between her hands, somehow ignoring the burning heat from her palms.

“Spare me… your pity. I can … no longer … be saved.” She coughed a little more violently, but her throat was cleared of ash. 

“Those who offer themselves to the flames of Muspell gain tremendous power… briefly. Death follows quickly.”

“Surely… surely we can…” the princess grasped for words. Her blue eyes frantically sought an escape in from hell that Laegjarn knew did not exist.

“If you want to do something for me… Please, find Laevatein…” Laegjarn closed her eyes as they began to dry and thought of Sinmara wedged into her prone form on the ground. 

“Protect her. Please! She is all I have…”

“I understand.” Fjorm’s voice wavered. 

She couldn’t open her eyes beyond the charred blackness at this point, but she could guess that the princess of Niflheim was tearing up. 

“We will make every effort to rescue her.”

“Thank you, Princess Fjorm…” Even her voice was charing, drying out, but in her chest, her heart was just beginning to warm and catch fire.

“My eyes… the flames of Muspell have burnt them away. I cannot see a thing… But it is only now, I think… that I can truly see you. Strange, isn’t it?” 

Of all moments her heart had to betray her from anything but her sister, it was now. Being locked by icy cold was such an awful thing, and perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing, warming her heart up as she lay at Muspell’s maw. 

“Princess Fjorm… Suppose we had chosen a different path back in Nifl… Could we have been… With you, could we have been…” she trailed off. It was too much to think of what could have been, to think of betraying her father with her sister’s life on the line.

There had been flames but now all she could see was sooty, ashy darkness. Like the skies after villages they had razed, her view was inkly black and rough and scratchy and dry. But instead, it reminded her of the sky under which she vowed to protect Laevatein with everything she had. It almost sounded like she was calling out to her again, begging her not to swear such things. What a sweet sound… 

“Laegjarn…”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked what I wrote here, let me know! There's a comment and kudos button for a reason (^ . ^)


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